“Oh,” I say, glancing at him now. “If she did…” I gesture vaguely toward the screen. “That would be a mistake. Big mistake. Huge.”
Liam stares at me for a second. Then shakes his head, backing away. “Movie quotes aren’t going to help you.”
For a few minutes, it actually works. The girls are pulled in, eyes on the screen, whispering to each other in that low, excited way that doesn’t spike the noise too high. I lean back against the wall, arms crossed, tracking everything the way I do on the ice—movement, sound, shifts. It’s all contained. Manageable.
My phone buzzes in my pocket, but I ignore it for now. I need to focus on this lot. Julia Roberts laughs on screen. A couple of the girls giggle with her. One leans forward, chin in her hands.
Okay. This is fine. We’re fine.
Until we’re not.
“Wait, what’s going on?” one girl pipes up.
“Why is she driving that car like that?” another girl asks, louder than the others.
Someone answers her. A third jumps in. The volume rises. It’s not bad, not yet, so I need to get it under control.
I push off the wall, stepping forward. “Hey, hey. One person speaking at a time.”
Within a few minutes, they’re quiet again, watching Julia on screen until one of the girls relates her name to…
“Her name is Vivian?"
This leads to another rise in volume as the group starts comparing notes, and in my pocket my phone buzzes again.
I shift, trying to keep my focus here. “If you’ve got questions, save them. We can talk about it after.”
“Are we almost to the part with the necklace?” someone asks.
“Not yet,” I say.
“Is she, like, a princess?” another girl asks.
“No.”
“Then why does she get?—”
“Hey,” I cut in, a little firmer. “Movie first. Questions later.”
They nod and manage to stay quiet again for about thirty seconds. Then someone drops something—a metal water bottle hitting the floor with a sharp, echoingclangthat ricochets through the room.
A few girls laugh. One shrieks. But the noise. The noisespikes hit me hard. Voices overlapping now, bodies shifting, chairs scraping as they turn toward each other.
My phone buzzes again.
And again.
I press my tongue to the roof of my mouth, forcing my brain to sort it, my anxiety spiking.
One thing.
“Okay,” I say, stepping forward again, hands up slightly. “Guys. Eyes on the screen.”
“Wait, but?—”
“Eyes on the screen,” I repeat, more clearly this time.
A few of them comply, but not all. Why is this devolving into chaos? A chair screeches loudly against the floor at the same time the TV volume suddenly jumps. Probably some glitch in the ancient setup that causes the music to blare too loud, too sharp.
